T h e H o w a r d B a n t a A l a r m C l o c k C h a p t e r Chapter 178 of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors www.acc178.org 2012 Volume 3 September 2012 President s Message GREETINGS ALL As you all know the 2012 National Convention is over. I have been taking a short break since the event to rest up but am back up and running again. We did have a Chapter 178 meeting on Saturday morning at the convention. Attending were chapter members Bob and Cora Lee Linkenhoker, Vince and Phyllis Angell, Dennis Sagvold, Larry and Mary Le Knudsen and guest Billy and Ruth Johnson who are friends with member Gene Baker. You can read the complete minutes of the meeting in the Chapter Highlights of the September / October Mart magazine. I wish to thank Phyllis for taking notes and writing the minutes. Besides the chapter meeting Vince and Phyllis had a great alarm clock display in the mart room during the entire Convention. All in all I would rate the convention as successful and quite entertaining. I encourage all of those that can possibly make the National Conventions to do so. I feel sure you will not regret it. grandparents would have been using and the prices they would have been paying for them, of course wages were not what they are today. Check out the information later in this newsletter for some of this interesting data. I will be including more of this material in future letters. As always I wish you all good health as well as happy and successful collecting. Till next time yours truly. Bob Linkenhoker "A great Find in Pasadena" Above, Bob Linkenhoker proudly holding a rare box for a "baby Ben". Yes the word "baby" is not capitalized and the word "Ben" is...we believe this to be possibly the second model of the Baby Ben with the earliest patent date of 1902 on the back to the latest of 1911. Dennis Sagvold stopped by our residence in August and dropped off quite a few copies of material from his archives of early advertising for alarm clocks. Much can be learned from these ads about what was offered for sale and the prices from the early part of the 20 th century. These are the items our parents and 1
Rare Alarm Clocks at The Mart This Admiral Byrd alarm clock was actually purchased by Vince Angell and shipped to Germany to Alarm Clock Peter...demonstrating that even members in foreign countries can shop at our Marts and not even leave home." 2
Above, Phyllis Angell and Debbie Arlington work on setting up the the booth at the Mart. Below, the finished work. Thank you ladies! Tom Tognetti examining a Seth Thomas "Lodge" with alarm. Tom finally bought this and said it would be a great addition to his collection. Pictures from Ward s Catalogues These pictures and the related text were taken from various Ward s catalogues (at least I believe this is true) of earlier years. Read the text to get an idea of the selling points that were used to pitch these items. I don t have the years that these are from but look at the prices and you will get an idea. I have a question Does anyone know who was the large clock manufacturer that Ward s contracted with to make the Old Reliable and the Reliable? Also is the Reliable a downgraded version of the Old Reliable or just a latter product. I have seen these products for sale at the local regionals but since I personally specialize in Westclox haven t given them much attention. This will certainly change in the future. Verlyn and Phyllis Kuhlman visit the Howard Banta Alarm Clock Chapter Booth. Check out the text for the German made alarm. At 49 cents it looks like they didn t really push this produce but rather showed it in comparison to an American made produce. A flashback to an earlier time when American products were valued over foreign competition. 3
There is one more sheet included which is the instructions to set up the E. Ingram produced eight day National Call alarm. One other interesting point. even though Montgomery Wards has gone through many changes in its life and in the late 20th century closed all it s retail stores, even going through a bankruptcy, that today it exist as an on-line retailer. Type Montgomery Wards into your browser and see what comes up. I hope these will be of interest to you. Bob Linkenhoker 4
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